


Dark

by DetectiveRoboRyan



Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Also Aversa is maternal as fuck, Character Study, Duality, Emmeryn is also gay in case y'all havent noticed, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, One day I will write the true Momversa, Teeny Baby Ficlet, Unrequited Love, again sorta, one day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-27
Updated: 2016-05-27
Packaged: 2018-07-10 12:22:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6984892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DetectiveRoboRyan/pseuds/DetectiveRoboRyan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>SO i couldn't leave well enough alone so here's the other half of the aesthetic. nice</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dark

**Author's Note:**

> something clever about duality and metaphors
> 
> a crude drawing of a butt

A midsummer storm brews on the horizon. It is evening, just before dusk— muggy and hot, a breeding ground for mosquitos, so humid you could collect the air in a bowl and serve it like soup. Persimmons are ripe in the northern reaches of Plegia. Frederick and Cherche bought up half the market of them and baked them into pies with cinnamon, and they taste divine. The Shepherds wander back to their tents, sleepy and sated from the treat, though Emmeryn stays at the infirmary hanging washed (and sterilized) rolls of bandages to be dried and reused. They're not a real army, the Shepherds; they must make do with what they have.  
  
It is a task that does not require much in the way of thought or movement, so Emmeryn can do it without help. She takes her independence where she can— her speech may be shattered and her memory lost, but her mind is sound. She only wishes her limbs would move as quick and precise as they once could. She feels like an old lady, trapped in a body that just cannot be as good as the one it once was, only without the wrinkles and bad back and bunions. (She is, make no mistake, thankful for that.)  
  
It is one of the tasks Aversa helps with— though by 'help,' she mostly just holds the basket off the ground and talks. Emmeryn knows more than the rest of the Shepherds expect just from listening, and knows about the trouble in Aversa's buried past that has only recently come to light. But Aversa has a hope of recovering bits by talking, so Emmeryn will listen as long as it takes. That is what friends do.  
  
Emmeryn takes another roll out of the basket and pins it in drapes along the line. She's already helped Lissa do the same with the day's linens. Unlike the rest of the camp, wherein laundry day is only the dreaded once a week, in the infirmary, it is a daily affair. These are the times Emmeryn is thankful for practical magic.  
  
Emmeryn reaches the end of the pole and struggles to reach. Aversa pins the last end of the strip easily, reaching over Emmeryn's head with little effort.  
  
"You are tall," Emmeryn remarks. "Thank you."  
  
"I do what I can," Aversa admits. "There are benefits to height."  
  
"It… suits you," Emmeryn decides.  
  
Aversa isn't sure what to say to that. Emmeryn smiles (she finds herself doing that quite a lot; something about the scar on her head apparently makes it look like the absent smile of one who is not all there in the head), and moves to the next line.  
  
"You say the cleverest things," Aversa says, and it's an honest compliment— an honest compliment that sounds like an honest compliment, rather than sounding like a veiled insult. Emmeryn cannot remember how she can distinguish these things. "I don't understand. They say you're injured, and yet you talk with me just fine."  
  
"I can't do… some things," Emmeryn admits. "Things… give me trouble. Stairs. Buttons. Ties. En-vel-opes." She has to sound out 'envelopes'— three-syllable words are troublesome like that, her own name included. But saying it with only two syllables would be the wrong way to say it, and Emmeryn has always been insistent on this. It's either three syllables or one, and it's only one if you're either of her siblings or Frederick.   
  
"But that doesn't… mean I can't… can't…" she frowns, her brow furrowing, and has to fish for the word when it drops out of her grasp. She hates it when that happens. "Can't think. I still can. Still…" She taps her head. "Here."  
  
"I have to wonder how," Aversa remarks. "I—" she stops herself from wondering aloud how she could've survived a fall like that, before remembering what Robin had told her about that being distressing to Emmeryn. At the time, she had rolled her eyes and only grudgingly agreed, but Aversa has a certain weakness for young women who show an inherent and inexplicable goodness— a desire to protect, possibly stemming from the hope of the world not gaining another Aversa. First Robin, now Emmeryn. Aversa wonders if these urges will ever stop. (She could pin it on maternal instincts still in play, but that's another story. In the end, they don't, and she is fine with that.)  
  
"I can't… re-mem-ber," Emmeryn says, "Some things. But… I don't mind. I am… happy here. With friends. And… are you?"  
  
Aversa blinks. Her instinct is to reply with the sharp tongue that served her well among Plegian nobility, but she remembers that it's Emmeryn she's dealing with. "I suppose," she says, measured, careful. "I suppose I enjoy the company of these friends, too."  
  
"Good," Emmeryn decides. "Friends." And nothing more.

**Author's Note:**

> look guys it's midnight and ive been playing dragon age all day i'm not gonna be overly witty rn i'm just glad to be done


End file.
